Lake Worth elections and a look back to January 20th, 2016: Royal Poinciana meeting and District One candidates.

[The entire blog post from last year, prior to the March 2016 elections, follows with emphasis added. Remember the Anarchist candidate Ryan Hartman? He lost in a landslide and partly blamed Lake Worth beat reporter Kevin Thompson, saying the reporter “lied in two of his articles”. Hartman’s entire concession following the March 2016 election can be read using this link. Hope you enjoy this “look back” and remember the bond referendum to fix our roads passed overwhelmingly last November 8th.]
This is the first of two videos taken from last night’s Royal Poinciana Neighborhood Association meeting. It was held at the Lake Worth High School’s Media Room. Candidates for the District #1 seat, Ryan Hartman and Vice-Mayor Scott Maxwell were there and gave about a ten minute overview of their backgrounds, point-of-views, achievements and the direction in which they want the City to head in the future. There were about 35 people there and it seemed at least half of the attendees were from other parts of the city.

Vice-Mayor Maxwell started off with an introduction. Some highlights include his mentioning of the Greater Bay lawsuit settlement at the 9:30 mark and at the 10 minute mark he talks about the 2020 Program and the road bond issue [in 2014] that failed to pass. Even though the result was 24 votes short of passage, he still seemed encouraged that a large number of people in Lake Worth were willing to tax themselves for needed infrastructure improvements. He and the City are in the hunt for various grant programs to help fund some longstanding needs for improved roads and other public infrastructure.

Candidate Ryan Hartman begins his introduction at the 12:30 mark. That is former Commissioner JoAnn Golden sitting with her back to the camera, to the right of the candidate. He started off by saying that he doesn’t like to talk to large groups, and prefers one-on-one conversations or small groups. He hoped that he had enough content to fill 10 minutes. He said that he would “talk slow.”

Hartman mentioned he studied Peace and Conflict studies at Naropa University. He mentions it was a process of “contemplative education” and, as an elected official, he would read things before voting on them. At the 15:15 mark we hear about his travels across North America. He said that while in Florida, he “met some people” who told him about Lake Worth and he gained an appreciation for it. He loves it here except for the government since the focus seems to be Lake Worth wants to be like “every other city” in south Florida.

He mistakenly claims that Vice-Mayor Maxwell has never had an opponent. This is probably something that they are saying at the doors, but Scott Maxwell has had challengers over the years. That’s at the 16:15 mark. As far as the length of time Mr. Hartman has been in Lake Worth, it will be two years as of February 1st.

Mr. Hartman talks about our City’s homeless situation and points to Dignity Village in Portland, Oregon as a humane way to handle the homeless population.

That’s the introduction. When you have the time please watch the second video that has most of the Q&A portion. And as always, Thank You for visiting my Lake Worth blog.


[I hope you enjoyed this look back to early 2016. For more of my Lake Worth YouTube videos use this link to see the most popular all-time. To receive an email when new videos are uploaded click on the red “Subscribe” icon. By the way, this one is my personal favorite.]